


A )(oʻi aʻe au

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi, Sadstuck, and in the end, it doesn't really matter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Until we meet again,</i> she sang, and held back her tears, because a Queen should never cry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A )(oʻi aʻe au

**Author's Note:**

> _One fond embrace,_   
>  _A hoʻi aʻe au_   
>  _Until we meet again_   
>  _— Aloha 'Oe, Queen Lili'uokalani_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (note: this work is no longer completely canon to _at the end of the stars_ )

It takes you years (that seem like days, to you of the long life), but you finally find those files.

  
Sollux had buried them in piles of code and data and so many other silly things that you didn't understand. Was it a memory matrix, or a honeycombed hive? It didn't matter, even as you went through layer after layer of data encryption. How many books had you read your way through to unlock his computer? According to half of them, it shouldn't have even been possible, but maybe you were thinking he left a way in for you. It _would_ be just like him, after all!

  
And there's pages and pages of pixels and pictures and something not quite like poetry. And it feels so _real_ and so _him_ , and you wish you had started this before you lost them both. Because there's letters for you and for him and for anyone he could think to write to. There's an ache in your heart that's too red to just bleed into the rest of the pink that flows through you, a sweet kind of sorrow that's all the better for having. You wouldn't want to wish it away if you could, even as you read, because in all of those letters, he's there. And there's one that's bittersweet black laced with a hint of sad red, and you have to stop reading before you start crying. But you finish everything in the end, because you have to.

You print everything and bind it all up in a book, like you did with your heart, all those sweeps ago. The cover's in a mustard-gold, and it's handbound, one of the many things you've taught yourself to do over the sweeps. And you mix a drop of honey with fresh saltwater and sprinkle it across the cover to stain the silk while trying to put that last line to the back of your mind— _ii know you loved her, ED. ii forgiive you, not that there2 anythiing to forgiive._

* * *

 

It takes you a lifetime (but not _your_ lifetime), but you finally visit his hive again.

  
He was organized and tidy and careful, like alwaves— _always_ , you correct yourself, it's unbecoming of a queen. Not that he started that way, but rigid military discipline forced him into a semblance of order. Really, it suits— _suited_ him. And you look around, and it's obvious that he set things up for you, left the floor swept and soft sand strewn over the rocky island, a silent invitation to land in safe harbor. It's just like him, after all.

  
And he's kept _journals_ you never knew about, book after book, and a treacherous little part of you goes, _did you efin know )(e could draw?_ You thumb through the pages, some purple-stained, some with blotches of ink or blood or tears on the page, every single one saltwater-kissed. Every page, every word, it's like you're sitting up close to him, listening to him talk, hearing his voice. 'Rails before pails, is what everyone said, and your captain kept to it. His journals are uniform, a dark navy that's not on the hemospectrum at all, an ordinary, no-nonsense color. And in the last one, you find some kind of code, and you wind up sprawled on the floor, with journals spread open all around you. He's left you a message, but it's confusing for its candor: _fef. behind the bookcase, alright?_

All that work, for five short words? But you shift the bookcase away anyways, and he's hollowed out part of his wall. There are twelve books in there, all bound in colors of the rainbow (and one color that's not supposed to exist at all), and you read through them in order of those you've lost. His own book is all...advice, and thoughts, and you realize that he meant it for the next one after him. It's not about him or his great deeds, just words he thought some lost and scared troll might like to know. Might need to hear.

And your journal makes you cry _because Sollux was right._

 

* * *

 

It takes you forever (but you have that long anyway), but you finally write their grave song.

 

And by this time it's your grave song too, sweeps and sweeps and sweeps have swept past and your hair finally threads itself with silver as you watch the hatchlings crawl and scramble and shout. Your heart hung heavy on your hands until now, and you watch your daughter-child, your descendant, take up your crown. She'll sing you to sleep, that much you know.

When you asked her, she frowned, still petulant, still certain that you'd never leave her. But she humored you, as she learned your elegy, twining through the old tongue as swiftly as she could swim. And she'd wonder why the custom was so out of practice, and you hadn't the heart to tell her that grave songs were written in blood and bone in the olden days. That you'd sung your Empress to sleep with a trident and knife, and all the power you possessed.

It didn't matter, anyway. She would find what you had left for her, and what they had left for you. Note after note of life and death, of who you were and who you wanted to be. He had left you files, and you had bound his books. He had left you stories, and you told his tales. Now you left your daughter-child songs, signed in starlight and saltwater, to do with what she might.

 

And when you finally went to sleep, you heard their song, her song, _your_ song, washing over you, high tide in the dim season. They could hear it too, you knew, your daughter singing.  _Our song,_ you thought,  _our goodbye_. And you let yourself be washed away by the waves, the way you had wanted to for so long.

 

* * *

 

 _Until we meet again_ , she sang, and held back her tears, because a Queen should never cry.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Ask Blog Stories Project, written as a gift for crystal-doll, gokudo, and porthazoh, who are the mods of Ask Bumblebee Tuna (http://ask-bumblebeetuna.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrhAuEeyCao ((Aloha 'Oe - Queen Lili'uokalani, cover by Tia Carrere))


End file.
